Take the Darkness...: Epic Fantasy Series (23 page)

Chapter 51

Silver and the Wolvern had confirmed that only a few hundred followed the queen, Silver and he would go and take them with Seraphina’s help, and Seth was to do the rest. Seth watched as the Wolvern talked to the minds of the humans and pushed them to action. They could follow simple instructions like run this away and that. The Wolvern led them over the rise and watched the reaction from the skinny creatures on the beach. At first, they just sat or stood around like statues, but then a small wind blew and the scent of the hunt found them. He watched as one the group of thousands stood and started running. Seth, without the aid of Seraphina to hid him, buried himself in the snow and watched.

The Wolvern, Seraphina, Silver, and the humans started running the other way, back towards the city. Soon he saw the huge flock of beasts come shambling after them, and one by one the howling and screaming mob of them passed. One or two stepped onto him as he hid in the shallow grave of snow, but none stopped. Soon he heard the Wolvern howl, which meant he was clear. Seth pulled himself from the snow and looked down onto the beach. It stood deserted, as they had all taken the bait and run. His three friends and the lost humans were being chased by an army of monsters into the arms of even more. He said a prayer for them and made his way down to the beach.

His hand was burning with pain as he rushed down to the water, without a second thought, he thrust his hand into it. It felt better straight away, but nothing happened. He was expecting some feeling or sound or movement, but he simply knelt there hand in water, staring at the huge expanse of the dark sea that was in front of him. He could feel that there was something deep, deep down there in the water. He imagined that it was in there but asleep. Like some giant he needed to wake.

Seth closed his eyes and opened himself up to the instinctive feelings. Most of his life, he’d been guided by something, and now he just let it take over. He drew his dripping hand from the water and placed it together with the other like a prayer so that it pressed against the moon symbol. He started to sing. He sang the old Northern songs of longing and loss and wanting to return home. He felt something but he needed the right words, and thinking of the Wolvern he shouted. ‘Give us the sun and take the darkness!’

Again nothing happened. He was sure they were the right words, and so again and again he shouted the words. He thought in his mind of all the times in his youth that he’d spent in the sun. Running in the fields, marching with his troop, and the caravan march to Black Rock. He screamed the words again and then it happened. He had a feeling of waking; he was lost for a moment and didn’t know where he was, but he could see the light growing beneath the waves. It was huge and spread for as far as he could see with his eye. As he looked on, he felt and saw it coming up. Closer and closer it started to come to the surface, and he saw the dark water start to boil, and strange white fish and creatures floated to the tops of the water dead. He felt the first wave of heat and he knew. Seth stood up and started running up the beach as fast as he could as the sun began to wake and rise.

Seraphina ran across the snow with what seemed like a solid wall of the creatures behind her. From far left to right it was one of them after another. She was slower than the Wolvern and Silver, but the Wolvern kept pace with her, and it urged her on in her mind with its taunts. The creatures behind howled for their blood and soon she saw what they were running towards. The queen and her most loyal were marching towards them.

It was something of a royal guard. They spotted the group and started running towards them faster. They carried the queen on the litter she’d seen before, and there were hundreds of them, much less than the howling mass behind them, but these were more dangerous. They had armour, weapons, and brains enough to fight in a way that wasn’t just clawing and eating. Still, it was like running from a sword to an axe.

‘
Fear not, little princess, your plan will work.’
The Wolvern said in her mind.

‘I fuckin’ hope so.’ She said, swearing for one of the first times in her life, as it seemed like a good time to start. They slowed their pace a little and let the mindless creatures behind catch up. She saw a few of the humans tiring and dropping down, being taken by the clawing hands. A flock of the skinny things with their hanging skin stopped to feast on the poor souls. She heard very human screams but ran on. Silver paced along with them, but unlike the fear Seraphina felt, she had a huge grin on her face and shone with power and confidence. She yelled: ‘This time I will have her, I think your time is now, Seraphina.’

The two forces of the pale skinned creatures were getting very close. Summoning all of the power she could muster, Seraphina created the lie. The lie that they were still running at the queen and her bloated mass of killers. The lie that they hadn’t really split their group into two and were running up the sides of them and past them. They had to stay close so the scent of the humans would still guide the skinny things, and then it happened. The first sword wielded by a pale skin creature struck at what it thought was a person, but it just kept running. Her guise, Silver’s, the Wolvern’s and all the people’s ran through the charging army like ghosts. She was safely past them now and kept running. Stopped and looked as they saw the ravaging force of creatures coming at them. Some drew swords, but most didn’t know if they were real or not until they were on top of them.

Seraphina looked at the battle and was filled with revulsion. The pale creatures destroyed each other without mercy. On one hand, the mindless skinny things from the beaches leapt on anything, clawing and devouring their own kind. She saw them like wolves, pinning them down and biting their fat bodies through gaps in their armour. The others fought with revulsion of their own, and they were possessed with fear and hatred of these kind, not wanting to think they could be like them. They fought with fury and skill, their huge bodies faster, stronger, and moving with more purpose, but for every one of them, there were ten of the others.

She’d never seen anything so incredibly vicious and fast. It was over within minutes. Finally, she saw exactly what they had hoped would happen. The queen and her force had prevailed, but at very heavy losses. The woman creature was slumped in her litter which had been placed on the ground, and around her stood ten or so guards, scars and blood dripping from them where they were slowly healing. Silver looked at her and smiled. ‘Let’s finish this.’

Chapter 52

He’d never cared much for direct combat. Living in Pelloss, he’d gotten to avoid ever having to join the army like Seth had as a young man, and had basically avoided anything that wasn’t a fight against one other man. Sure he could swing a sword well enough, but leading a charge into an enemy force wasn’t anywhere near the top of things he wanted to do in his life. Still, Farirkar wouldn’t let him stand at the sidelines, given it was just his word that yes, the little redhead girl would get word into the Keep, and no, they wouldn’t be fighting the Duchess on their own, but at least they would have a few minutes before the other side knew what the hell was happening to do some damage.

‘How was that?’ Goldie asked as Farirkar walked up to him and he stood getting dressed into some chainmail he’d ‘borrowed’ from a fleeing Bastard who was a part of the two hundred or so who had deserted them.

‘Fine, she’s a pretty bitch, but she seemed happy enough to have a man like me fighting instead of that prancing boy,’ Farirkar said in his deep gravelly voice. He was a very intimidating man.

‘What you? You’re built like a little girl,’ Goldie said.

The man laughed. ‘Good thing for you I eat little girls like her; you ready? Has she signalled you?’ He asked.

He’d seen the sign of Josette firing three flaming arrows into the field, then three more, which meant she’d gotten in and they would march.

‘Of course; did you ever doubt my little sister?’ Goldie asked as he finished putting on his stolen armour.

‘Why do you Northmen say that? She’s not your sister,’ Farirkar said back.

‘It’s a way of warning people to treat her like she is or they’ll get their cocks cut off,’ Goldie said with a laugh.

‘Well, our last King should have known that,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Now enough shit, let’s go etch the Red Bastards’ name in blood once more.’

Goldie followed Farirkar through the camp. The men of the Bastards who were left were more than ready. In truth, it was the best possible force for this kind of a job. Every one of the men who had left or been quietly killed were the true mercenaries. They were there for the gold and loot only. The ones left all had something to prove. They all knew they wanted to retake their names, and the gold was a bonus. He could hear some talking of how many they would kill if it was a gold a man. Goldie had told them he’d want weapons as proof of the kill, and of course he knew a good sword or bow was worth more than a gold coin, but they didn’t need to.

Looking around the camp, every man had his face painted red and they looked like devils; they slowly fell into a loose formation behind Farirkar and himself. They passed the old black man Quest, who was strapping his wicked curved sword to his back. ‘She’s mine, remember.’ He said as he fell in with them. Soon the ground started to pound with the sound of it. Farirkar took up the song, and soon more than eight hundred rough voices were singing with him. You could hear the voices across the plain and inside the Keep, that being the idea.

‘We lay waste to the Keep and noble blood, we come like the rising flood.

Fire, sword and axe our only friends, the Bastards bring your end.’

He thought he could have come up with better, but it was tradition, he thought. Soon Goldie stood in formation with his new army. He’d been allowed to form his own men into a force and lead them. Skinner, Holly, and his other twenty or so were there. They all had missions once the fighting started, and knew them well enough. They stood before the walls and sang and sang. From the top, a single fire arrow came down to them. It hit a man who yelped, but was only singed as it had no tip.

‘Here they come,’ Goldie said to Farirkar.

Grimm stood in the Black Rock courtyard looking at the troop that was the Cold Death, and the Black Rock guards, or what was left of them. It was a small amount of men to be heading out to face this number, even if they did have secret allies in the field. He could see the fear in many of their faces. All they knew was that they were trusting their lives to the fact that the Bastards would indeed strike as soon as the Duchess’ forces came to engage them. He stood next to Dagosh, Elizebetha on the podium. He’d been given the command formally by Dagosh just moments earlier.

‘I don’t know about all of you, but I’m scared shitless,’ he yelled. ‘We’re going out there and a thousand pairs of eyes are going to turn on us and come marching to engage. We need to get them involved, face us, get bloody, and then the Bastards will take them from behind. I promise you all it will happen: we have allies with them and we know that this will happen. So let’s kill this blonde bitch and be back before dawn!’

He wished Seth had been able to make it back, but there was no chance of that now and at least they had proven their worth. Still, it would be bloody. If he was the Bastards’ leader, he wouldn’t play his hand until they were very distracted.

Grimm jumped off the podium and into the crowd of soldiers, as he would be leading from the front line. Lady Elizebetha said a few words, but he was distracted. He walked to Minsetta who stood at the front of his force of fifty pike men. She had changed into mail armour and wore a long sword. None of the men knew who she was, but the sight of her lifted their spirits. She looked like a death bringer, a reaper of the soul; that was some Pellosi belief, but if it helped he was happy enough.

‘How many will die?’ She asked in a whisper.

‘I’m trying not to know,’ he said.

The gate’s force of the Black Rock formed up in front of the gate with Grimm’s men at the front. The gates started to open slowly, so slowly. There was no one there but the roadway. He turned to his men. ‘Let's get their attention.’ He said, and they started chanting ‘Cold Death’ over and over as they marched out of the gate.

Chapter 53

He had only run a few paces when he stopped and turned back to the coming heat. It had stopped. He felt the sun resting beneath the waves and he knew that if he wanted it to keep coming he would have to pull it with everything inside himself. Going back to the shore, he dropped to his knees and screamed again. ‘Give me the sun!’ He thought of it, coming back and shining across the land. He knew they needed it. If it came back, he knew the raving dead humans would change, they would feel its power and start the march to judgement. He knew the silver ones in the city would fear. There was no changing them back, but if Silver won she could command them to stop the killing.

Seth thought of his life so far. He’d heard the word ‘Druheim’ so many times from the lips of others, and he finally realised that he was the man meant for the term. The hero of legend was always a tragic figure. He took on the burdens needed to. He took the pain so others didn’t have to. Closing his eyes tight and thinking of what he needed to do to fix this land, he pulled. It was like calling the Wolvern, but harder. It burned his mind, but it came. Soon the first flame licked above the water. It was all he could see in the ocean. His entire range of vision was yellow under the boiling water, and then it was all flames and red bubbling heat.

Seth started screaming as the heat on his body became unbearable, but he needed to keep pulling. He tried not to scream as his clothes heated up and then burst into flames. His skin wasn’t protected and started to burn. His entire body was a kneeling pillar of flame. He felt the pain in his body like nothing he’d ever felt before, and could barely hold the thought to pull it. It was a tiny thought in a sea of agony, but enough. His skin blackened and burned and his tears burned away. He felt the flame in his mouth and lungs, and couldn’t scream anymore. He toppled to the side feeling the agony through his body as his only thought. The sun kept rising and the heat only got worse. It was so close to him that he could have hit it with an arrow.

He waited for death to take him. He begged for it as no Northern should, but it would be a relief from this. He reached out and felt the Wolvern and he managed to think: ‘Take their bodies and give me the rest.’  He felt the power of the takings fill him. The side effect had always been the healing, and now he clung to it. His skin started to repair. His burned lungs and eyes healed, and even short hair which had singed off grew back, but the flame and the heat assailed him again. Seth started screaming again as he burned alive for the second time. The sun had stopped and he pushed the thing away; he needed to get it away from him. It started to rise again as he burned and healed, burned and healed, again and again.

He watched with joy as the pale skin creatures ripped each other apart. Dirty things: they were so stupid they even killed their own kind. He was not content to watch and soon ripped into their bodies, trying not to eat them but simply destroy, and then he felt it. It was a pain of such depth that he’d only felt a few times in his life. It was a pain of sacrifice, a pain that must be endured. He saw a flash of his boy Seth burning on the beach as he pushed the sun up from its watery grave. He leapt at the creatures, trying to free himself from the fight to go to him. But then he heard the thought. ‘Take their bodies and give me the rest.’

The Wolvern leapt with a fury it had never known. His body was burning alive and he needed them all. It sank its teeth into one and swallowed down the fetid meat and blood, feeling the boy healing to burn again. So he fought again and again, taking one and then the next. They killed each other around him, and then pushing himself into the fray of the skinny ones, he got what he wanted, and they fell on him like a pack of dogs. He snapped left and right, killing as fast as he could, ripping out their black rotten hearts and swallowing the disgusting meat, trying not to think on it. It was weak power, but still enough to save him.

The Wolvern heard Seraphina exclaim and point, and then he saw it. Over the horizon, the sun began to rise. Up and up it went. First he could feel the heat, like being in a furnace, but soon it lessened and lessened as it rose faster, and after that into the sky. He killed and killed, not looking at his victims until it began to approach the moon. The sky was filling with light and the snowfall had stopped. He saw as the sun came towards the moon, it moved. He heard the creatures yell with shock, but soon the slow sun had moved until it stood centered in the sky and the moon was gone. He thought on his boy and saw him panting, shaken, ruined but alive.

Silver stood and faced what was left of her mother’s force and laughed. ‘Kneel!’ She yelled, and they did. Her mother, the queen, was slumped in her litter, almost passed out from using too much of her power. When the ruined ones had attacked, she saw her people try to flee, but it was only her mother’s power that made them fight. Now they were almost all dead with only a handful left standing in a field of bodies. There were thousands of the skinny pale creatures, all cut down with black swords and axes, and her former people who’d given themselves over to the hunger, bloated bodies slashed and bitten, eaten and dead. Some would heal and some wouldn’t. The Wolvern had run once the sun was risen, and she thought his connection with the boy must have called him. She turned to the girl Seraphina. ‘You should go, and I will join you once this is done; he needs your help, I’m sure.’

The girl turned and ran after the Wolvern, through the melting snow on the ground. She looked up into the sky at the ball of fire now burning there where her Mother Moon had been for years. She felt the tingling in her skin; soon it would start to burn her, but that was right. They had to share this world with the men, and they needed the light. She could not live only in sun, but she knew the moon would soon return; she felt her waiting and she would be back before she got back to the city.

She walked to her mother as she sat looking at her weakly form, fear deep on her distorted and now ugly face. She remembered seeing her as a child, and she had thought she was the most beautiful thing.

‘You’ve done a terrible thing, daughter, you have killed us all.’ She slurred.

‘Hardly, mother, we will adapt like we did before we came here; do you remember when we lived amongst the men, and we shared with them?’ She asked.

‘And they killed us, they drove us to this place,’ she said.

‘Is that why you took the sun, is that why you did it?’ She asked. Silver had been born in darkness, born to this place, and stories of the world of men were just legends to her.

Her mother laughed bitterly. ‘You think I had that kind of power? It just happened, we prayed for it and one day it happened. He heard my prayers and put the sun to sleep.’ The queen said. ‘He told me his plan for this world and all the others, and now you have ruined it. You’ve ruined it and you will pay.’

Silver laughed ‘I care not for your voices, who and why and what. I care about our people, mother, and what you have done to them, and now you’ll pay for it.’ She said, walking towards her.

‘No, daughter, please don’t.’ The queen said, struggling from her chair and hitting the ground hard before she began to crawl away.

‘Hold her,’ Silver commanded, and they did. She approached her struggling mother and, taking a dagger from one of the fallen, looked her in the eyes. ‘You know there is only meant to be one at a time, and it’s my time now.’

She tossed the dagger to one of the men who caught it from the air. ‘Cut it out.’

‘Yes, my queen,’ he said back, and did as she told him.